Dutch Treat

February 25, 1990|BY MALCOLM R. HEBERT

IT IS THE MOST POTENT RICE dish one can serve. It will tame the trencherman, curb the chowhound and make even the glutton groan. It can have as many as 80 side dishes and be served with 20 or more wines. Its name is rijsttafel (pronounced rye-stay-full), which is Dutch for ``rice table.``

The former Dutch East Indies, now called Indonesia, is a nation comprised of thousands of islands strung along the equator like jewels in the ocean. Marco Polo called them the Spice Islands. Their cuisine is composed of Chinese, Indian and Dutch influences, featuring such aromatics as cloves, nutmeg, mace and pepper.

Common to almost all of Indonesia is a dependence upon rice. In the islands, rice is more than just a staple like bread or potatoes; an Indonesian housewife first buys the rice, then plans her family`s meals around it. And unlike the Chinese and Japanese, who generally eat rice after other dishes, Indonesians mix the rice with other cooked foods just before eating them.

It was this fixation with rice that led to the Dutch colonial rijsttafel. Not content with serving three or four side dishes with tumeric-tinted rice, the wealthy Dutch settlers developed the rice table into an elaborate presentation of foods. They transformed a simple style of eating into an ostentatious display of fine cooking and opulence.

A full-scale rijsttafel was a three-or four-plate festival. A procession of white-coated waiters would enter, each one bearing rice or an individual dish. The diners would fill one plate with rice and then take what they wanted from the other offerings, putting them on or around the rice and on the second, third and fourth plates. The whole affair was superbly orchestrated, balancing and contrasting meat and fish, spicy and bland, crisp and soft, sweet and sour, and never repeating any particular flavor.

To make all the dishes palatable, anywhere from five to 20 wines were offered with the various dishes.

Rijsttafel is still served in Indonesia, and can also be experienced in a number of Indonesian restaurants in the United States. In general, however, the humongous meals enjoyed by the Dutch colonialists are a thing of the past, and most rijsttafels today are prepared on a much less elaborate scale.

If you want to try one, it is relatively simple. First, make enough rice for six people. To give the rice that tasty, yellowish look, add one teaspoon of ground tumeric to the water that the rice is cooking in. Then prepare some of the side dishes listed below.

If you like your food on the spicy side, any of the dishes can be made hotter by adding chopped onions, chili pepper flakes or fresh chili paste.

SATE BABI MANIS

(Pork on a skewer)

2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon ground coriander

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/2 teaspoon ground cuminseed

1 tablespoon brown sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

1/4 pounds lean pork, cut into 3/4-inch cubes

Make a marinade of the first seven ingredients and let the pork cubes steep in the mixture for 2 hours. Thread 5 or 6 cubes on 12 skewers. Broil or charcoal-grill the pork, basting with marinade and cooking until done. Serves 4.

CUMIN OMELET SHREDS

1/2 teaspoon oil

6 eggs

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Salt and black pepper to taste

Heat oil in a sautepan, and mix the eggs with remaining ingredients. When the oil is hot, add eggs and cook on both sides. Remove omelet and let it cool. Roll up and cut into thin slices. Serves 6.